WHETHER you are standing outside its new office base at St Mark's Basin or on the edge of its development site at Teesdale Business Park, the achievements of the Terrace Hill Group, since establishing a Northern base for itself on Teesside some six years ago, are impressive.

As Teesside's largest business park development and the first that the area has seen for many years, this prime site - a flagship scheme for Terrace Hill - is proving to be a sound investment for the Group as the leading developer at Teesdale.

The first phase of its two-phase development programme comprised 11,000 sq ft of high quality office accommodation for Barclays Bank, which was completed in 1996. This was quickly followed by 7,500 sq ft of offices for Healthcall in 1997.

The second phase began with the purchase of 25 acres of land from the Teesside Development Corporation in 1998, before it wound up.

Since then the scale and progress of development has attracted a number of blue chip companies to the site.

The first two buildings to be completed in the second phase, in the Tees Reach area, have a combined floor area of 30,000 sq ft. Progress House and VAI House, occupied by White Young Green, Brewin Dolphin and VAI Engineering, have since been sold as an investment to MGM Assurance.

Terrace Hill then turned its attention to the area known as St Mark's Basin and by March of this year had completed another two buildings - George Stephenson House, 40,000 sq ft of high spec office accommodation let to the Inland Revenue - and its own 16,500 sq ft office building, St Mark's House, which was pre-let to the DVLA and the Valuation Office and is now also occupied by the Insolvency Service.

Commenting on his success at Teesdale, director Philip Leech said: "We still have 20 acres left to develop here. One month ago we started an 11,500 sq ft purpose-built office for Endeavour Housing, due for completion in Spring 2001 and we plan to begin 16,500 sq ft of enhanced specification office space on the adjacent site, by the middle of November.

"Our close working relationship with agents Dodds Brown Commercial and Knight Frank has been an important factor in our success and I'm delighted with our progress. The area has needed a development like this for a long time and there is steady demand for quality space.

"We have established a reputation for ourselves in the region having completed prestigious developments in Sunderland and Peterlee as well as Teesside and we are looking at new opportunities elsewhere in the region. We are one of the last six developers to be short listed for Baltic Business Park in Gateshead and we have just submitted a planning application to Newcastle City Council for a 25,000 sq ft office development on Barrack Road.

"I believe that our recent success at Teesdale is just the start of an exciting new development phase for us in the North East as a whole"